Scrap Soup: An Easy To Remember Recipe

I don't know about your family, but on a cold winter's day, mine loves hot soup for lunch. Unfortunately I find commercially canned soups, especially the ones with whole food ingredients, too expensive. And when it comes to soup recipes, I'll be the first to admit that I don't like fuss with one. We've got a lot going on around here so I like things that are simple to make as well as nutritious to eat. Scrap Soup is my answer to that. It's frugal, fun, nutritious, and never boring.

Scrap Soup

1. Open fridge
2. Remove all leftovers and unused raw veggies. Literally. I mean it. (You may omit leftover fruits and desserts if desired, but be daring if you like)
3. Chop, cut, or dice to preferred size
4. Put all (I mean all) into a pot
5. Add liquid, as much as you want soup for. (I save & freeze all my cooking liquids from potatoes, pasta, steamed veggies, etc. )
6. Add a handful of uncooked legumes or grains if needed
7. Season to taste
8. Cook all day, the longer the better (This is a good one for a crock pot if you don't have a wood stove to cook it on)
9. Enjoy with homemade crackers or bread

Leftovers:

• raw onions
• raw okra
• last of the fresh garden green beans
• gravy
• chicken broth
• cooked rolled spelt cereal
• leftover tomato salad
• 1/2 gallon potato cooking water
• last of the homemade salsa
• homemade, home canned tomato relish

Added:

• handfuls of lentils
• and brown rice

Comments - pleasing combination of flavors, but could have used more seasoning.


Leftovers:

• broccoli cooking water
• cooked broccoli stems (liquefied in blender)
• spaghetti
• green beans
• tomato juice
• lima beans which had sweet pickle juice added to the cooking water
• pineapple
• sausage

Added:

• salt
• pepper

Comments: The tomato, sweet pickle juice, pineapple, and sausage made a tasty flavor combination.


Leftovers:

• Thanksgiving turkey including neck and tail
• giblet cooking water
• cornbread stuffing
• celery
• onions
• corn cut off cob
• carrot
• broccoli stems
• potato cooking water
• brown rice
• turkey gravy
• mashed potatoes
• sauerkraut juice

Added:

• salt
• pepper
• sage
• Italian seasoning

Comments: Absolutely yummy! Wonderfully warming on a dark, damp, chilly, rainy day.


Leftovers:

• pork and chicken bones
• one lime
• pasta cooking water
• steamed turnips
• sautéed onions
• raw onions
• celery
• ginger carrots
• lima beans
• last of the Christmas turkey

Preparation - simmer bones and lime in water for two or three days. The acid in the lime helps dissolve the minerals out of the bones. Discard bones & lime peel before adding other ingredients.

Added:

• cup of pearled barley
• salt
• a couple of fresh rosemary sprigs

Comments: Really good! Couldn't even tell that it had been cooked with lime.

You get the idea!

Scrap Soup: An Easy To Remember Recipe photos & text  © 

February 2010 by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/

Spring Seed & Nursery Orders

While waiting for all the ice to melt, I completed my seed and nursery orders. Some things were mail ordered, and some purchased locally. Here's my list:

• 1 Jubilee blueberry bush
• 1 O'Neal blueberry bush
• 25 Eversweet strawberry plants (everbearers)
• 25 Allstar strawberry plants (June bearers)
• 3 Caroline red raspberry bushes
• 1 pkt sage seed
• 1 pkt sweet basil seed
• 1 pkt thyme (Thymus vulgaris) seed
• 1 pkt creeping thyme (Thymus serphyllum) seed
• 1 pkt dill seed
• 1 pkt oregano (Origanum Vulgare) seed
• 1 pkt fennel (Zefo Fino) seed
• 1 pkt Lavender (Lavendula augustifolia)
• 1 pkt yarrow (Achillea millefolium) seed
• 1 pkt bergamot (Bee Balm, Monarda didyma) seed
• 1 pkt anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum) seed
• 1 pkt spearmint (Mentha spicata) seed
• 1 pkt Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia) seed
• 1 pkt pyrethrum (Chrysanthemum coccineum) seed
• 1 pkt parsley (Petroselinum crispum) seed
• 1 pkt. nasturtium seed
• 1 pkt hollyhock seed
• 1 pkt Butterfly flower seed
• 1 rosemary plant (Rosmarinus officinals)
• 5 horseradish plants
• 3 Rosa Rugosa bushes
• 1 California white garlic bulb
• 1 pkt Hale's best cantaloupe seed
• 1 pkt sugar baby watermelon seed
• 1 pkt Little Marvel pea seed
• 1 pkt Roma tomato seed
• 1 pkt Rutgers tomato seed
• 2 sets Yellow Ebenezer onion sets
• 1 pkt Yellow Ebenezer onion seed
• 1 pkt Cherry Belle radishes
• 1 pkt China Rose winter radish seed
• 1 pkt Chinese Giant sweet pepper seed
• 1 pkt American Purple-Top rutabaga seed
• 1 pkt Fordhook Giant Swiss chard seed
• 1 pkt mesclun mix seed
• 1 pkt Late Flat Dutch cabbage seed
• 1 pkt buttercup squash seed
• 12 Bush Porto Rico sweet potato plants
• 4 lbs Red Pontiac potatoes
• 1/2 lb black turtle bean seed
• 1/2 lb white half runner bean seed
• 1 pkt Scarlet Nantes carrot seed
• 1 pkt Stowells Evergreen sweet corn seed
• 1 pkt Japanese White Hulless popcorn seed
• 5 lbs Truckers Favorite field corn seed
• 1 pkt Colossal Long Red mangel seed
• 5 lbs buckwheat seed
• 1 lb White Dutch clover seed
• 1/2 lb Ladino clover seed
• 1 lb Orchard grass seed

This list doesn't include seed I saved from last summer's garden:

• Clemson Spineless Okra
• National Pickling Cucumber
• Casaba Melon (from a seed saving neighbor)
• Waltham Butternut Squash
• Acorn Squash
• Small Sugar Pumpkin
• Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans
• Mammoth Gray Sunflowers

Nor seeds yet to save (hopefully) from the fall garden:

• Detroit Dark Red Beet
• Paris White Cos Lettuce
• Danver's Half Long carrot (though I may switch to the Scarlet Nantes)
• DeCicco Broccoli
• Purple White Top Globe turnips

From whom did I order?

• Stark Bros. Nursery - have ordered from them before. Good prices and good selection.
• Gurney's - for the $25 coupon. Plus I've ordered from them in the past with no complaints. They sell mostly hybrid seed, so it was hard to come up with an order.
• Henry Fields - also for the $25 coupon. They were helpful because their catalogue highlighted varieties that do particularly well in the south.
• R. H. Shumway - the bulk of my order. They sell mostly open pollinated seed, and no known genetically modified seed or plants.

This should hopefully do it for fruit bushes and plants. All varieties chosen are supposed to do well in the south. Some I won't be planting until next fall. All are open pollinated so unless impulse or disaster strikes, I shouldn't need to buy too many seeds next year. I still plan to expand my herb gardens however, so I will definitely be looking at that next year and will probably pick up herb seeds or plants before this summer's over.

To me it seems like a rather overwhelming list. It's certainly the most I've ever bought, but it's also the first time I've had a place to plant fruits and perennials. I just have to keep reminding myself that it's all an investment in the homestead!

Spring Seed & Nursery Orders copyright February 2010 

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/

Winter Storm

Last night when we went to bed, snow flakes were gently falling. This morning when we got up, this is what I saw out the window.....

Quite a bit different from these, taken just earlier this month. Still, not bad compared to what others of you have been experiencing.

When I went outside for a closer look, I discovered that our driveway was almost on it's way to becoming an ice skating pond.....

If the ground hadn't warmed up over the past several days, it would have been frozen solid. As it was, the ice was just a layer on top.




A closer examination showed that the white stuff on the ground was not snow, but ice crystals....




Very pretty to look at and photograph, but in our part of the country (southeastern US in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains) the ice can become unbearably heavy and do this...

This poor crepe myrtle just can't take the weight. If the ice gets too thick on the branches of larger trees, the danger is that they'll fall on power lines and we'll lose electricity.

Currently it's still raining and the temperature is barely above freezing. Hopefully this means that the ice accumulation will be minimal. In the meantime, it's a good day for staying inside and completing my seed order!

Winter Storm photos & text copyright January 2010 

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/